Analogue time keeping apparatus, such as clocks and watches, and the game of golf have been known for centuries. Both believed to date from about the 15th century.
Clocks and watches which divide a day into hours and minutes and tell the time are known. Stopwatches or chronometers are known which allow intervals of time to be measured. More recently, over the last several decades, digital time keeping equipment has become available enabling complex timing to be conducted and bespoke timing programs and apparatus can be created for specific timing tasks. With the advent of computers and programmable timers, essentially any timing problem can be solved by creating a bespoke digital timer.
Despite these advances in horological apparatus no one has yet invented a simple means by which a golfer when playing a round of golf can easily assess their progress against the pace of play guidelines as suggested by the R&A of St. Andrews (Golf's governing body) to avoid the problems of ‘slow play’. ‘Slow Play’ is generally accepted as any round of golf on an 18 hole course taking longer than 4 hours.
Despite the flexibility of digital time keeping equipment, a conventional analogue clock face type display is still generally preferred by many. As well as generally being considered more aesthetically pleasing, such displays allow essentially instantaneous assimilation of the information, are generally more suited to reading from various angles and in various lighting conditions and facilitate interpretation of the significance of the time by a user.
Analogue time keeping devices, typically watches, with additional hands and functions for presenting additional information, for example, seconds, time of day, the date, the seasons of the moon, the state of the tide, or for example a count down timer are known. Watches having a conventional analogue clock face but tailored to particular applications, for example diving or aviation, having additional hands or dials are known. Digital watches with multiple timers and alarms and complex computers and calculator functions are known.
Despite the centuries of development, hitherto there has not been proposed a device which can conveniently measure or sub-divide time intervals spanning multiple hours using a conventional analogue clock face timing device.